Key Information Sets (KIS)

KIS presents comparable information about university courses across the UK. It has been introduced by the Government to help you decide where to study.

Where does KIS data come from?

KIS data is made up of results from the National Student Survey (NSS), the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) plus information provided by each university.

How can you use KIS?

The information provided can help inform your decision about where to study. It enables you to compare similar courses at different universities.

What other information is important in deciding where to study?

Choosing where to study is a very personal decision and what is important to one person may be less so to somebody else. In addition to the information provided in KIS you might want to think about the course curriculum, links with employers, the location of the university and the resources available to you. Use university prospectuses and websites to gain a full understanding about the course you are interested in.

A note about specialist art, design and media universities and KIS data

Specialist institutions such as NUA have relatively small numbers of students compared to big multi-faculty universities. Some of the statistics you will see on our course pages or on Unistats are taken from small numbers of students who responded to a given survey. In some cases the response of just one or two students can have greater impact as each counts as a larger percentage.

Where a course has fewer than 23 responses to a survey, or when the number of respondents is under half of the year group the information in KIS might be grouped with the previous course year, or if this is not available it may be grouped with other courses in the same department. The Unistats website explains where this has happened.

What does KIS data include?

National Student Survey (NSS) – a survey of all graduating students conducted each year by Ipsos MORI. Students are asked to rate their satisfaction with various aspects of their course and the results are published annually. The results are presented as the number of students who are satisfied and where courses have small numbers the information that you see may be grouped as explained above.

Proportion of time spent in various learning and teaching activities – by year/stage of study, with a link to further detail.

Proportion of summative assessment by method – by year/stage of study.

Professional, statutory and regulatory bodies that recognise this course, details of the type of recognition with a link to further detail.

Employment data six months after graduating. This is taken from the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey conducted annually. The results are expressed as a percentage of graduates in work or further study after 6 months.

KIS also includes information about the average salary six months after graduating and the percentage of graduates who go straight into professional or managerial occupations. It is not unusual for graduates to take longer than six months to fully establish themselves in their chosen career. Longitudinal surveys look at employment information for graduates 40 months after graduation. In the last survey conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies, Creative Graduates, Creative Futures NUA students felt themselves to be the best prepared for their future compared to all other universities included in the survey.

Accommodation costs both for University managed accommodation and private accommodation. This is shown as the middle range of annual costs.

Financial support available from the University including bursaries and National Scholarships.

Average fees (excluding fee waivers) per year by country of UK domicile. This gives you the fee shown as an annual average taken across all of the years of study.
Unistats is the official government comparison site and uses the most up-to-date and accurate data available. Other comparison sites may use less up-to-date data or group data in different ways.